Posted on 11/25/2008 10:39:35 AM PST by Jedi Master Pikachu
Where I come from in West Africa, we have a saying: "A fool at 40 is a fool forever", and most African countries have now been independent for over 40 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
aid addiction or AIDS addiction?
Oh please the BBC’s polotically correct motto is all white people are evil racists and all africans are noble nd wonderful people. Europe has dumped hundreds of billions down that rat hole.
Looks like 0bama plans to fund a lot more of the exact aid through the UN which this article claims is holding Africa back. Talk about fools by 40.....
You didn’t read the article did you.....
Good read, The bottomless pit of human existance, strife, and corruption that is Africa, can be proud and industrious.
The African problem can only be solved by well informed and educated Africans, the author of this peice is one.
Pouring money into it, devolves, as it always has.
The NWO does not want Africa to develop.
Welfare degrades people, whether it’s here on elsewhere.
the problem with corruption is that it’s an economy killer that’s not easy to fix by merely cutting taxes. It is why we have such a big problem with illegals; the corruption in Mexico destroyed the economy.
This won't go down well with American, European, Japanese, etc. farmers, and there should be some safeguards in place so that the United States is self-sufficient in the basics, but ending subsidies not only would be more fair (yes, I said fair), but also would either free up tax dollars for better use elsewhere, or could help with a stimulus/tax cut.
Of course, simply printing money and sending it to Africa, along with offloading all that surplus food our subsidized farmers produce on that continent and then boasting about it is a lot more attractive than incurring the wrath of the farming lobby, and more than a few other Americans.
My apologies. I just scanned it. It is a good article because it was written by an African who “gets it.” I was expecting something from some guilt ridden, politically correct, self loathing, hand wringing, left-wing white person sitting at BBC HQ in London.
There was a great book written by an African American younger man who went to Africa to discover his roots. He was horrified at what he found versus the romantic idea of Africa. He was attacked by left wing whites and blacks in the USA and around the world.
He said he was so thankful to be an American which enraged them even more. The books was probably written 10 years ago. He had been a writer for Washington Post or something.
Sending money to Africa is a waste of time. Who’s getting the kick backs. Those people will never change.....makes no difference how much money you send over there and our government knows it.
One of the best things that could happen to Africa would be to free them of all the ignorant ‘help’ they are getting
Leave them alone.
The problem with Africa, I think, is that independence came about too rapidly. Most African nations were artificial lines on the map drawn by colonial powers. African societies were caught between traditional tribal, agricultural systems and the modern Western-style nation-state.
Ideally, the colonial powers would have spent several decades gradually preparing their colonies for independence by allowing graduated autonomy- first on the local level, then nation-wide and finally in the sphere of international relations. Unfortunately, the colonial powers walked out (or were forced out) very quickly, and most African nations ended up with one election post-independence that installed a President-for-life.
Can’t say that I blame the colonial powers for getting out- the locals no longer wanted them there and they certainly had no interest in continuing to spend money on colonies that had become a drain on the national treasury.
Nothing I haven’t said for years, except I never thought of the poor of Africa being taxed too little. It isn’t the taxes, it is the governmental system, so taxes wouldn’t help any more than more aid would, the same corrupt individuals would squander it or steal it.
Capitalism works up until socialism takes over because more and more people want the working man to give up his hard earned wages to keep them alive.
The problem with subsidies and changing them is that in Africa you can hire someone for a dollar a day, there is little government mandated regulation. Given their unsubsidized, unregulated economy, they should be able to compete with any farmer in the world, subsidized or not.
I don’t have a problem with no longer subsidizing farmers if we stop subsidizing workers who give a buck’s worth of work an hour and earn $7. As long as the farmer is buying everything tax free and only paying on earned income, instead of having taxation and regulation built into inputs.
Absolutely. The African people are good people. They are very religious and increasingly more so, and they are ill served by the kleptocracy that currently runs so many of the countries. Aided and abetted by the idiocy of the West.
Cut the flow of dirty money and let African entrepreneurism and ingenuity loose. They are so blessed with mineral and other resources there.
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